


No Such Thing as a Coincidence

by WaterandWin



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 02:15:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1881267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaterandWin/pseuds/WaterandWin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Bucky sees the flier, he has to do a doubletake. There is a striking likeness in the drawing’s face. The shape of the eyes especially, and in the firm set of the brows. He has the same nose, too, and the same puffed out lower lip. But the rest of the star spangled figure is so comically polar by comparison, Bucky can’t help but chuckle. Tall, square-jawed, and built like an Olympic star, the cartoon stands with a hand on his hip, shield in hand, and a foot on the chest of what can only be a passed out Adolf Hilter. Above and below him, printed in big block letters, is an advertisement for war bonds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Such Thing as a Coincidence

**Author's Note:**

> My debut fic into this fandom and it's something I wrote in a day. I know, I know. I should be ashamed. For _many_ reasons. Let me just hit post before I change my mind.

The first time Bucky sees the flier, he has to do a doubletake. There is a striking likeness in the drawing’s face. The shape of the eyes especially, and in the firm set of the brows. He has the same nose, too, and the same puffed out lower lip. But the rest of the star spangled figure is so comically polar by comparison, Bucky can’t help but chuckle. Tall, square-jawed, and built like an Olympic star, the cartoon stands with a hand on his hip, shield in hand, and a foot on the chest of what can only be a passed out Adolf Hilter. Above and below him, printed in big block letters, is an advertisement for war bonds.

“Is that what they think we look like out here?” One of the men says over the others. “I dunno about you boys, but I didn’t get a pair of tights with my uniform.” A rumble of laughter passes through the bar. The flier changes hands.

“If it were that easy, we’d all be on our way home by now.”

“How about they send this asshole to fight the war for us, huh?”

“I sure hope my gal doesn’t expect me to come home looking like that.”

“You mean like a fairy?” someone yells in response.

“Hey now,” Bucky suddenly finds himself snapping over the rancorous laughter. It comes out sterner than he means to. A bit of a hush falls over the soldiers, and Bucky suddenly feels like a moron defending a goddamn drawing. Force of habit. “At least Johnson _has_ a gal back home,” he recovers, and the swell of cackles and heckles tells him the save was believable.

Nonetheless, his mood is soured. To say that worrying about a little punk back in Brooklyn is starting to get to him would be an understatement. It’s been a bit too long since he’d heard from Steve. Letters probably got lost plenty travelling overseas, but it was high time he sent another one just in case. Steve’s letters had been uncharacteristically short the past few months, and whether he was hiding a case of pneumonia or a broken jaw, Bucky was determined at least to _hear_ from him and make sure he was alive.

He’s getting ready to leave when a change in the tone of the background noise catches his attention.

“Hell if they don’t think the war is some big joke back home,” one of the men hollers. “Running around, punching out Hitler, hair done up like we’re on some girl scout outing or some shit.” He leans over and hacks a glob of dip spit on the floor in disgust. “Fuck ‘em. War is hell!”

A roar of consent passes through the crowd. The flier is promptly crumpled and whipped into the trash. It bounces against the wall instead and lands next to the bin, where it firmly remains for the remainder of the evening until one of the sargents picks it up when he thinks nobody is looking and tucks it into his pocket on his way out the door.

* * *

The uncannily familiar face doesn’t go away. He’s on stamps sent from home and in the ads in the U.S. papers. There are postcards and comic books, posters and cartoon strips. On shipments of supplies, where there used to be a generically pretty busty brunette throwing up a salute, is now a picture of his cocky, confident smile.

Even the smile is the same, Bucky thinks with a sink of his stomach. He’s starting to wonder if he’s just seeing things, but it’s not like there’s anyone around he can ask. When Steve writes, it is worryingly brief. At least his handwriting is strong and steady, which Bucky takes as a good sign, but the details are all frustratingly vague. His health his good (relative to what?), he’s getting by (how?), he’s been busy (doing what?), he’ll write when he can (when?). All Bucky can do is send him part of his pension and hope the kid doesn’t get himself beat half to death in some alley.

Weeks turn into months. Bucky gets used to being cold and bone tired. Men die. Steve barely writes. Captain America smiles. Some days, it’s all Bucky has. The things he would do for that dumb grin. Unfathomable coincidence or not, some nights that stupid flier is all that keeps him going long enough to come home alive and see the real thing.

Other nights, the guilt practically eats him alive. The drawing is just that, a picture. A fiction. Strong and healthy and happy as he may look, Bucky has no idea what the reality might look like, other than small and bruised and out of breath. He hates himself that the surrogate gives him any kind of hope, and that the sight of him makes his heart jump and his stomach flutter and his chest burn.

With dread enough to make the floor shift beneath him, Bucky comes to realize it isn’t just the face he likes about the picture. It started with his thumb tracing the outline of the new, strong jawline, and then it was sinking lower. Broad, muscled shoulders. Thick trunk. Narrow waist. It isn’t as if the costume leaves much to the imagination, though there is some if Bucky wants to get really creative. He doesn’t, or at least he tries not to. He’s never been the sort to pine after men, after all. Never. He tells himself it’s the familiarity of the face, that’s all, though as time goes by that rationalization only makes him feel all the worse. Pretty soon, he’s not even so sure if what’s tugging him home is Steve, or the picture, or the prayer of finally being disillusioned from his wants. He doesn’t even know which is the least guilty option anymore. All he can do is blame the whole thing on hiding the ad in the back cover of the girly magazine he keeps under his pillow in the first place, but taking it out and keeping it in the only other safe place, inside his jacket pocket, doesn’t reverse the damage. Occasionally he still wakes, ashamed to his very core, with the sight of Captain America wearing his best friend’s face arching naked and wanting beneath him.

* * *

When news comes that a performance tour is coming to Italy, reactions are mixed. It’s all a formality at best and a joke at worst, and all the only thing to stop the men groaning about it is the mention that there’ll be girls. American girls. That gets the men pretty excited.

Bucky tries his best to be excited too, but underneath all he can do is wring his sweaty hands and hope seeing the actor up there in his costume isn’t going to make him want to sink into the ground in shame. Who knows, maybe he looks nothing like the pictures. Maybe he’ll have a bad wig and a wart on his nose and crooked teeth. One thing’s for sure, he’ll look nothing like the real Steve. Bucky’s not certain how he feels about that.

There hasn’t been a letter in over a month. Bucky can’t seem to get Steve out of his head. He can’t seem to get Captain America out of his head. Worst of all, he can’t seem to disentangle the two. It gets to him. Steals his appetite and his sleep. The days tick down and he’s distracted. He wants to see Steve and dreads it all at once.

His thoughts make him thoughtless, and his thoughtlessness gets the better of him in the end. It was the one day he forgot to tuck ad into his jacket after the wash. There were a lot of things about that day he forgot. He does remember bullets and shouts and an unearthly blue flash of light. He remembers a metal table and gloved hands and masked faces. He remembers pain, then agony, then numbness. He remembers, tries to remember, struggles to remember through it all that he is James Buchanan Barnes, of the 107th Regiment, number 32557. This is something he must never, ever forgot, for as long as he should live.

32557.

32557.

32557.

He remembers Steve. He remembers Steve’s voice calling his name and Steve’s face blurring into view above him and Steve’s hands helping him to his feet. He remembers being happier to see him than he’s ever been to see anyone in his entire life. Steve is alive. Steve is well. Steve isn’t safe, but with Bucky by his side, he will be.

He remembers Steve being smaller, but he gets over the discrepancy pretty quick.

 


End file.
